Hi!

Sep 10 August Wrap Up

August is over, the summer is coming to a close, and another season of reading is over! There is one book that took up a majority of my August reading (which I’m not mad about), but I was able to sneak in another book before the end of the month. So without further ado, on to the Wrap Up!

Dark Age by Pierce Brown

Oh my, Dark Agewas a ride! As many of you know, Pierce Brown is one of my favourite authors, and the Red Rising series is one of my favourite sci-fi fantasy series of all time. So it’s safe to say that my expectations were high, and it didn’t disappoint.

I do want to add a quick content warning for the Red Rising series for in-depth descriptions of violence, violence towards children, slavery, assault, and mentions of rape. Please consider your mental health before picking up this book if you find any of these types of content triggering.

Dark Age gripped me and destroyed my feelings in the best way possible, and I think it sets the stage well for book six. The pacing of this book is phenomenal and was a perfectly crafted chaos, which is something that I love in my sci-fi and fantasy books.

In Iron Gold, we had four perspectives, and we now have five in Dark Age. Many of these perspectives are interacting in ways that they hadn’t in the previous book. Every story had a breaking point where the character could not return from, and it’s clear that the next installment Is going to be a wild ride. Pierce Brown also writes each POV all the way through before weaving them together, which I find fascinating considering how the book flows.

The use of multiple perspectives in this book also kept the tension very high because you know things from other POV chapters that the current POV does not know. This may cause you to scream at one of the main characters in certain places. I know I did.

However, the height of the tension in the novel doesn’t mean that the book was one note. We had other POVs that focused more on small, interpersonal conflicts instead of these big battles. The diversity in the types of conflict made the stakes believable for each POV chapter.

There isn’t anything else that I can say without going into spoiler territory, but this book has probably taken the spot as my favourite book of this year and I, of course, gave it 5 out of 5 stars. I may do a spoiler-filled review as well because I have so many feelings, so stay tuned for that.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

I finally finished King of Scarsthis month! I was sad when I had to return it to the library last time when I had run out of renewals, and I’m even more annoyed at myself now realize that I had returned it right before stuff went down. This is not to say that I wasn’t enjoying the book beforehand—the pacing was excellent, and I loved revisiting this cast of characters that we’ve known from previous books. The threads that were left over after the Six of Crows duology and the Grisha trilogy were picked up and taken to places where I did not see coming.

This book also has multiple perspectives, including a new character in Isaak. Isaak provides an interesting new perspective because he was not as closely connected to the conflicts in the other two series, compared to Nikolai, Zoya or Nina. He still has an innocence about the current relationship Ravka has with other countries, which contrasts the characters that are directly involved in Ravka’s international relations.

Overall, I’m eagerly anticipating the next book, and I gave King of Scars 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

I wasn’t able to finish rereading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone this month, but I was able to get through a few chapters before the end of the month. This was the perfect book to start reading after Dark Age because it’s one of those books that makes me happy while reading it. I’m probably not going to make it a priority in September because I will be starting grad school and have many other books I need to read, but I’ll probably continue to read it slowly here and there.

That’s all for the August wrap up! What’s your favourite book that you read last month? Let me know in the comments below.

Until next time, have a lovely rest of your day and read something awesome!